Verdun, the Ardennes, the Marne, the Somme, Ypres, Gallipoli. Four years. Seventy million soldiers, eight million casualties, two million went missing, twenty million injured. Minefields. Hundreds of miles of trenches in a sea of mud. Next Sunday we will commemorate the centenary of the end of a war that bled Europe.

Guillaume Apollinaire wanted to join the army as soon as the war broke out, but he wasn't admitted because he wasn't French (he was born in Rome of Polish descent). He didn't give up and commenced proceedings to obtain his French nationality; Finally, in April 1915 [...]

A rispetto is a Tuscan poetic form, usually composed of six or eight hendecasyllabic verses, although the extension may vary between four and ten lines. A Rispetto talks about love, it's a respectful greeting (hence the name) to the loved one. The form spread during the thirteenth century and reached its peak during the second half of the fifteenth century, when it was widely cultivated by Angelo Poliziano and, to a lesser extent, by Lorenzo de' Medici.

At the end of the 19th century, the relationship between composers and publishers was as the previous century: the composer used to sell his work for an agreed amount and he lost virtually all his rights on that work. Nowadays, the usual set-up, where the composer has more control over his work and shares the gains with the publisher, was driven by Richard Strauss, who in 1898 wrote to one hundred and sixty composers posing the need to improve their situation. His proposal was so successful that, shortly after, the German parliament approved a new law to rule the rights of [...]

At the beginning of this story, Friedrich von Hardenberg is twenty-two. He's a young man from a noble family, extremely intelligent and sensitive, passionate about literature, philosophy and science. He has spent four years in university and works as an apprentice (eventually, he should manage the salt mines that his father manages) and he keeps studying and writing. Then he first meets the other key person in the story, Sophie von Kühn, who is twelve. According to people who knew them, the girl is not especially brilliant, nor especially beautiful, nor especially anything. She is an ordinary girl, but she [...]

While Mahler was composing his fifth symphony, between 1901 and 1902, his Wunderhorn time was ending. In August 1901 he finished Der Tamboursg'sell, the last Lied composed with poems from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and that summer he musicalized some poems by Friedrich Rückert. As we know, there is a strong link between the first four symphonies by Mahler and his Lieder; For example, the first one and Die zwei blauen Augen, the second one and Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt or the third one and Ablösung im Sommer. But in the fifth symphony we don't find this link, we can no longer sing (privately, of course) any Lied by Mahler when we listen to it.